TVs to shoes: Consumers face pain of Trump tariffs

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, until now mainly an abstraction for American consumers, is about to hit home.

Beginning Sunday, the U.S. government will begin collecting 15% tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports — items ranging from smartwatches and TVs to shoes, diapers, sporting goods and meat and dairy products. For the first time since Trump launched his trade war, American households face price increases because many U.S. companies say they’ll be forced to pass on to customers the higher prices they’ll pay on Chinese imports. For more than a year, the world’s two largest economies have been locked in a high-stakes duel marked by Trump’s escalating import taxes on Chinese goods and Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs.

The two sides have held periodic talks that seem to have met little progress despite glimmers of potential breakthroughs. All the while, they’ve imposed tariffs on billions of each other’s products in a rift over what analysts say is Beijing’s predatory tactics in its drive to become the supreme high-tech superpower. American consumers have so far been spared the worst of it: The Trump administration had left most everyday household items off its tariff list (valued at $250 billion in Chinese products so far) and instead targeted industrial goods.

That’s about to change. When Trump’s new tariffs kick in at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, 69% of the consumer goods Americans buy from China will face his import taxes, up from 29% now. That isn’t all. Higher tariffs are set to kick in for another batch of Chinese products — $160 billion’ worth — on Dec. 15. By then, roughly 99% of made-in-China consumer goods imported to the United States will be taxed, according to calculations by Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

TERRY CHEA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Albert Chow, owner of Great Wall Hardware in San Francisco, holds a letter from a supplier notifying him that prices will be increasing 10 to 18 percent because of US tariffs on Chinese goods. He says he has no choice but to raise store prices on those products.